218 THE OCEAN. 



we open a small but deep and beautiful bay. "A 

 pretty little village or plantation -appears at the 

 bottom of the cove : the sandy beach stretches like 

 a line of silver round the blue water, and the cane- 

 fields form a broad belt of vivid green in the back- 

 ground. Behind this, the mountains rise in the 

 most fantastic shapes, here cloven into deep chasms, 

 there darting into arrowy points, and every where 

 shrouded, and swathed, as it were, in wood, which 

 the hand of man will probably never lay low. The 

 clouds, which within the tropics are infallibly at- 

 tracted by any woody eminences, contribute greatly 

 to the wildness of the scene: sometimes they are 

 so dense as to bury the mountains in darkness, at 

 other times they float transparently like a silken 

 veil; frequently the flaws from the gulleys perforate 

 the vapours, and make windows in the smoky mass; 

 and then, again, the wind and the sun will cause the 

 whole to be drawn upwards majestically, like the 

 curtain of a gorgeous theatre." 



Around these islands the water is frequently shal- 

 low, a fact made sufficiently obvious by its colour: 

 instead of the deep-blue tint which marks the un- 

 fathomed Ocean, the water on these shoals becomes 

 of a bright pea-green, caused by the nearness of 

 the yellow sands at the bottom; and the shallower 

 the water, the paler is the tint. The light thrown 

 upwards by reflection upon the under part of the 

 swollen sails, transfers the same hue to them, giving 

 them a singular aspect; but once I observed a still 

 more curious appearance, arising from the same 

 cause. Being becalmed off one of the little Keys 



